Economy to Get Worse Before it Improves

President-elect Barack Obama said that the economy seems destined to get worse before it gets better, reports MPR.

Obama pledged a recovery plan "that is equal to the task ahead."

In an interview broadcast on Dec. 7, Obama said that any bailout must be "conditioned on an auto industry emerging at the end of the process that actually works."

Obama takes office in six weeks and has said that help for homeowners is a part of his plan.

The president-elect announced on Dec. 6 that he would call for the most massive spending on public works since the creation of the interstate highway system a half-century ago. His first priority would be projects that would create jobs right away.

3M Cutting Jobs

Minnesota Public Radio is reporting that 3M is cutting 1,800 jobs from its worldwide operations in the fourth quarter.

In the third quarter this year there were 1000 layoffs.

"Given current global market conditions, we are expecting about 1,800 jobs to be eliminated worldwide," said Jackie Berry, the company spokeswoman. "Several hundred of those job eliminations would be in the United States."

It is expected that several hundred jobs will be cut in the United States, including the Twin Cities.

There are no specifics on where the cuts will come from or how much the cuts will save the company.

Berry says that employees who are let go will receive severance pay and other assistance.

"Affected employees will have the opportunity to apply for other jobs within the company," said Berry. "They are also eligible for transition assistance, including severance pay and outplacement services."

November 23, 2008

Bill Richardson Set to be Commerce Secretary

The Star Tribune is reporting that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to be commerce secretary.

The nomination is to be announced after Thanksgiving, said an anonymous Democratic official.

Richardson has had a distinguished career in Washington before becoming governor of New Mexico in 2002. Richardson was U.N. ambassador under President Bill Clinton and later served as energy secretary. He was in the White House from 1983-1997.

Under Clinton, Richardson was on many high-level diplomatic missions, including direct talks with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"Richardson is all about crashing through boundaries, said national security deputy at the U.N. in the late 1990s, David Goldwyn. "He says hello to the security guy, and if he's Hispanic he;ll say something in Spanish. If he's African-American he might call him 'his brother.'

Oil Pipeline Proposal

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will meet on Tuesday to consider a proposal for a new oil pipeline across northern Minnesota, according to MPR and Kare 11.

The pipeline would go from Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wis. and is being sought by Enbridge Energy.

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy opposes the project saying that the process of extracting oil from Canadian tar sands is too energy-intensive and runs counter to the energy efficiency goals of the state.

Enbridge said the project has cleared an extensive environmental permitting process.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission must sign off for the project to move forward.

November 14, 2008

Pollution Threat in Asia

Pollution in parts of Asia is altering weather patterns, blotting out the sun and getting into the lungs of millions according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations, the New York Times reports.

Soot, smog and toxic chemicals are the byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, cooking on dung and wood fires, and coal fired power plants.

Atmospheric brown clouds in Asia are dramatically reducing sunlight in China and leading to decreased crop yields in India. The problem has been studied since 2002.

The brown haze is sometimes more than a mile thick and stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to the Yellow Sea. In the spring it hits North and South Korea and Japan, sometimes even drifting towards California.

The U.N. report identified 13 cities as brown-cloud hot spots, including Bangkok, Cairo, New Delhi, Tehran and Seoul, South Korea.

According to the report, smog blocks from 10 percent to 25 percent of the sunlight that should be reaching city streets. Scientists working on the report believe that the blanket of haze might be temporarily offsetting some warming from the simultaneous buildup of greenhouse gases by reflecting solar energy away from the earth.

November 12, 2008

Gay Marriages Begin in Connecticut

Connecticut began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Wednesday, the New York Times and NPR are reporting.

This comes just a week after California voters passed a constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage there. Connecticut and Massachusetts are now the only states that allow same-sex marriage.

An order was signed Wednesday morning by a Connecticut Superior Court judge allowing gay and lesbians to apply for marriage licenses. Last month the Supreme Court ruled Connecticut could not ban gay marriage, saying it was unconstitutional.

Barbara and Robin Levine-Ritterman were the first to be issued a same-sex marriage license on Wednesday in New Haven.

In 2004 the couple sued Connecticut, along with seven others, for the right to marry.

The five will meet next Tuesday to certify the election, said Ritchie. The board will then order the recount, which will begin the next day and take place in 120 different sites across the state.

"You got the Coleman pile, you got the Franken pile and you got 'all others,'" said Ritchie. "The 'all other' piles are the ones where you can't tell the intent of they've invalidated themselves by marking."

The panel is politically diverse, and this is pleasing to Larry Jacobs, Director of the Center for Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute.

"These are some of our very best judges," said Jacobs. "I look at that and say, 'This is going to be fair.'"